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External HD problems

I was downloading some files to an external hard drive to transfer it to another computer. But for some reason when I plugged it in to the second laptop it didn't appear in "my computer", or anywhere. The light is on, windows makes the sound of a new hardware being plugged in and I can hear it spinning in it's case. It was also working just one hour ago perfectly when I downloaded the file. Just now I can't seem to access it. Under devices it shows up as a "samgsung USB device", and under removable hardware as "eject USB TO IDE".

Guessing since is it USB to IDE this isn't a new drive. If the data is more important that the external case you can pull the drive and see if using another USB to IDE adapter allows you to read the drive. I've seen a lot of the controllers fail on these over the years, but the data on the drive can still be read if use another adapter.

Guessing since is it USB to IDE this isn't a new drive. If the data is more important that the external case you can pull the drive and see if using another USB to IDE adapter allows you to read the drive. I've seen a lot of the controllers fail on these over the years, but the data on the drive can still be read if use another adapter.

Actually the data isn't important, just the drive. I don't think I have any other USB to IDE adapters I could use though, is there any other way to test this? I don't mind formatting/re-partitioning it also, if there is any way to do that without it being recognized as a drive...

Btw, it couldn't be anything to do with the fact that I plugged it into a linux OS could it? It's not being recognized on Linux either though, unless I am doing something wrong as I have no clue how to do anything on linux...

Just attaching and detaching the drive in a linux OS would not cause the problem. When the device is attached to your Windows computer does it show up in Disk Management and if it does how is it detected? Post a screenshot.

If the drive does not show up in Disk Management then you could try to remove the drive from the enclosure and attach it internally but if this is a portable drive the USB bridge card is probably integrated with the drive's PCB and attaching internally to another computer would not be possible.